Picnic at Hanging Rock Read online

  By the morning of Tuesday the seventeenth, the two young men who had been the last to see the missing girls on Saturday afternoon had dictated their respective statements to the local police. Albert Crundall at the Woodend Station, and the Hon. Michael Fitzhubert in his Uncle’s study at Lake View. Both had affirmed their complete ignorance as to the subsequent movements of the four girls after they had crossed the creek near the pool and walked away in the direction of the lower slopes of the Hanging Rock. Michael with faltering tones and downcast eyes which seemed to have receded into his head since Sunday morning, when Albert had come galloping back from Manassa’s store with the news of the girls’ disappearance. Constable Bumpher had seated himself at the Colonel’s writing table with Michael opposite stiff on a highbacked chair.

  After the usual formalities were completed, ‘I think, sir,’ said the policeman, ‘we had better start off with a few questions, just to get the general picture, so to speak.’ Young Mr Fitzhubert, with his shy charming smile and English good manners, was obviously the uncommunicative type. ‘Now then, when you saw the girls crossing the creek, did you recognize any of them?’

  ‘How could I? I have only been in Australia about three weeks and haven’t met any young girls.’

  ‘I see. Did you have any conversation with any of these girls – either before or after they crossed to the opposite bank?’

  ‘Certainly not! I’ve just told you, Constable, I didn’t even know any of them by sight.’ At which guileless reply the Constable permitted himself a dry grin, adding mentally, ‘Stone the crows! With that face and all that money?’ He asked, ‘How about Crundall? Did he speak to any of these girls?’

  ‘No. Only stared and whistled at them.’

  ‘What were your Uncle and Aunt doing while this was going on?’

  ‘As far as I can remember they were both dozing. We had champagne for lunch and I suppose it made them sleepy.’

  ‘What effect does champagne have on you?’ asked the policeman, pencil in air.

  ‘None as far as I know. I don’t drink much at any time and when I do it’s usually wine, you know, at home.’

  ‘Well then, you were perfectly clear in the head and sitting with a book under a tree when you saw them crossing the creek. Now suppose you go on from there. Just try and remember any little detail even if it seems unimportant now. You understand of course this is an entirely voluntary statement on your part?’

  ‘I watched them crossing the creek . . .’ He swallowed and went on again in an almost inaudible voice. ‘They all did it differently.’

  ‘Speak up, please. How do you mean differently? Ropes? Vaulting poles?’

  ‘Heavens no! I only meant some of them were more agile, you know – more graceful.’

  Bumpher, however, was not at this moment concerned with grace. The young man continued: ‘Anyway, as soon as we were out of earshot I got up and went over to speak to Albert who was washing some glasses at the creek. We had a bit of a talk – oh, perhaps ten minutes, and I said I would take a little stroll before it was time to go home.’

  ‘What time was it then?’

  ‘I didn’t look at my watch but I knew my uncle wanted to leave not later than four o’clock. I began walking towards the Hanging Rock. By the time it began to go uphill there was some bracken fern and bushes and the girls were already out of sight. I remember thinking the scrub looked pretty thick for girls to tackle in light summer dresses, and expected to see them coming down any minute. I sat down for a few minutes on a fallen tree. When Albert called out I came back to the pool immediately, mounted the Arab pony and rode home, most of the way behind my Uncle’s wagonette. I can’t think of anything else. Will that do?’

  ‘Nicely, thank you, Mr Fitzhubert. We may get you to help us again later.’ Michael groaned inwardly. The brief interview had been a fairly close imitation of a dentist’s drill boring into a sensitive cavity. ‘Only one more thing I’d like to check up on before we get it written down,’ the policeman was saying. ‘You mentioned seeing three girls crossing the creek. Is that correct?’

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re right of course, there were four girls.’

  Bumpher’s pencil was hovering again. ‘What made you forget there were four of ’em, do you think?’

  ‘Because I forgot the little fat one, I suppose.’

  ‘So you looked pretty closely at the other three, did you?’

  ‘No I didn’t.’ (God help me it’s the truth. I only looked at her.) ‘I suppose you would have remembered if there was an elderly lady with them?’

  Michael, looking irritated, said, ‘Of course I would. There was no one else. Only the four girls.’

  While this was going on Albert at the Woodend police station was giving his statement to one Jim Grant – the young policeman who had been out to Appleyard College with Bumpher on Sunday morning. Unlike Michael, Albert, fairly well used to the twists and turns which a policeman can give to the most innocent remark, was rather enjoying himself, being officially acquainted with young Grant through the trifling matter of a Sunday cockfight.

  ‘I’ve told you, Jim,’ he was saying, ‘I only seen them sheilas the once.’ ‘I’ll trouble you not to call me Jim when I’m on duty,’ said the other, who had reached the perspiring stage of exasperation. ‘It don’t smell good in the Force. Now then. How many girls did you see crossing that creek?’ ‘All right Mr Bloody Grant. Four.’

  ‘There’s no call for swearing neither. I’m only performing my duty.’

  ‘I suppose you know,’ said the coachman, producing a small bag of caramels and ostentatiously sucking one in a hollow tooth, ‘that this is a statement what I give to the police free, gratis, and for nothing. I’m only doing it to oblige and don’t you forget it, Mr Grant.’

  Jim resisted the peace offering of a caramel and continued. ‘What did you do after Mr Fitzhubert started to walk towards the Rock?’

  ‘The Colonel wakes up and starts hollering it’s time to go home and I goes after Mr Michael and blow me if he isn’t sitting down on a log and the sheilas out of sight.’

  ‘About how far from the pool would this log be?’

  ‘Look, Jim, you know as well as I do. The bloody police and everyone else know the exact spot. I showed it to Mr Bumpher himself last Sunday.’

  ‘All right, I’m only ascertaining the facts – go on.’

  ‘Anyway, Michael gets on that Arab pony what his Uncle lets him ride and rides home to Lake View.’

  ‘The little beaut! I’ll say some people are lucky! Gee, Albert, you couldn’t get the Hon. Who’s This to give me a loan of it to show at Gisborne? Nothing to beat that pony for fifty miles round here. Mind you, I wouldn’t be wanting the saddle and bridle . . . just the mount for the afternoon. The Colonel knows I haven’t bad hands on a horse.’

  ‘If you think I’ve come all the way down here from Lake View to scrounge a ride on the Arab for you . . .’ said Albert, rising. ‘No more questions? Then I’ll be off. Ta-ta.’

  ‘Hi, wait a moment. There is one more,’ cried Jim, making a pass at the other’s coat tails. ‘When Mr Fitzhubert mounted this pony of his you say he rode home to Lake View with the wagonette? Did you actually see him all the way?’

  ‘I haven’t got eyes in the back of me bloody head. He rode behind us some of the way so as we wouldn’t get his dust and some of the way he was ahead, according to the road. I didn’t take that much notice except that we all arrived at the front gates of Lake View at the same time.’

  ‘What time was that, do you think?’

  ‘Round about half past seven it must have been. I remember Cook had my dinner waiting in the oven.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Crundall.’ The young policeman closed his notebook with some formality. ‘This interview will be written out in full and shown to you later for your approval. You may go now.’ The permission was superfluous. Albert was already slipping the bridle over the head of a strawberry cob tethered in a patch of clover on the opposite side of the road.


  For three consecutive mornings the Australian public had been devouring, along with its bacon and eggs, the luscious details of the College Mystery as it was now known to the Press. Although no further information had been unearthed and nothing resembling a clue, so that the situation remained unchanged since the girls and their governess had been reported missing by Ben Hussey late on Saturday night, the public must be fed. To this end, some additional spice had been added to Wednesday’s columns’ photographs of the Hon. Michael’s ancestral home, Haddingham Hall (inset of sisters playing with spaniel on the terrace) and of course Irma Leopold’s beauty and reputed millions on coming of age. Bumpher, however, was far from satisfied with all this. After consultation with his friend, Detective Lugg, based at Russell Street, he had decided to make yet another attempt to extract something in the way of concrete evidence from the schoolgirl Edith Horton. Accordingly, at eight o’clock on the morning of Wednesday the eighteenth, another glorious day lightened by a gay little breeze, he had arrived at Appleyard College in a buggy and pair, with young Jim in attendance, for the purpose of driving Edith Horton and the French Governess to the Picnic Grounds at Hanging Rock.

  Mrs Appleyard, although the arrangement smacked vaguely of frivolity, could hardly object. The police, said Bumpher, were doing their utmost to clear up the mystery and in his opinion and that of Detective Lugg, it was essential that Edith as a key witness should be confronted with the actual scene as a spur to memory. The Headmistress, aware of Edith’s limited intelligence and unlimited obstinacy, plus a possible mild concussion, thought the expedition a waste of time and said so to Bumpher, who bluntly disagreed. Despite a rather unprepossessing manner, Bumpher was no fool at his job and had a great deal of experience in the way different people react under police questioning. He told her: ‘All of us trying to make this girl remember may have got her more bamboozled than ever. I’ve known people with shocking memories turn into quite useful witnesses once they get back to where they started, so to speak. We’ll try and take it easy this time . . .’ And so, with a relaxing atmosphere in mind, the Constable had allowed himself to enjoy the drive with Mademoiselle sitting up beside him smart and pretty in a shady hat, and had even shouted her a brandy and soda and Edith and young Jim a lemonade, while they were changing horses at the hotel in Woodend.

  Now they were standing at the exact spot on the Picnic Grounds where Edith and the three other girls had crossed the creek by the pool. on the afternoon of Saint Valentine’s Day. Straight ahead, on the sunlit face of the Hanging Rock, the forest branches threw faintly stirring patterns of shade. ‘Like blue lace,’ thought Mademoiselle, wondering how anything so beautiful could be the instrument of evil . . . ‘Now then, Miss Edith!’ The policeman was well away, all smiles and fatherly patience. ‘In which direction do you say you began walking the other day when you started off from this very spot?’

  ‘I don’t say. I told you before, one gum tree’s the same as another to me.’

  ‘Edith chérie,’ put in Mademoiselle, ‘perhaps you could tell the Sergeant what you four girls were chattering of just then . . .? I am sure they were chattering, Mr Bumpher . . .’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the policeman. ‘That’s the idea. Miss Edith, did anyone suggest which way they wanted to go?’

  ‘Marion Quade was teasing me . . . Marion can be very disagreeable sometimes. She said those peaky things up there were a million years old.’

  ‘The Peaks. So you were walking towards the Peaks?’

  ‘I suppose so. My feet were hurting and I didn’t pay much attention. I wanted to sit down on a fallen tree instead of going on but the others wouldn’t let me.’

  Bumpher threw a hopeful glance at Mademoiselle. There were a number of logs and fallen branches scattered about but at least a fallen tree was something concrete to work from. ‘Now that you’ve remembered about the log, Miss Edith, perhaps you will think of something else? Just take a look around from here and see if there’s anything at all that you can recognize. Stumps, ferns, queer-shaped stones . . .?’

  ‘No,’ said Edith. ‘There isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, well, never mind,’ said the policeman, resolving to renew the attack after lunch. ‘Where would you like to eat our sandwiches, Mademoiselle?’

  Jim was sent back to the buggy for the lunch boxes and they had just made themselves comfortable on the grass when Edith volunteered, apropos of nothing, ‘Mr Bumpher! There is one thing I seem to remember.’

  ‘Fine. What was it?’

  ‘A cloud. A funny sort of cloud.’

  ‘A cloud? Fine! Except that clouds unfortunately have a way of moving from one place to another in the sky, you know.’

  ‘I am quite aware of that,’ said Edith all at once prim and grown up. ‘Only this one was a nasty red colour and I remember it because I looked up and saw it through some branches . . .’ Slowly she took a large bite of ham sandwich . . . ‘It was just after I passed Miss McCraw.’

  Bumpher’s own sandwich fell unnoticed on to the grass. ‘Miss McCraw? Stone the crows! You never told us you saw Miss McCraw! Jim, get your notebook. I don’t know if you realize, Miss Edith, that what you have just told me is very important.’

  ‘That’s why I’m telling you,’ said Edith smugly.

  ‘When did your teacher join up with you and the other three girls? Think very hard please.’

  ‘She’s not my teacher,’ said Edith, taking another bite of the sandwich. ‘My mamma didn’t want me to do senior mathematics. She says a girl’s place is in the home.’

  Bumpher had somehow produced an ingratiating grin.

  ‘Quite so. Very sensible lady, your mother . . . now go on please, about Miss McCraw. Where was she when you suddenly looked up and saw her? Close by? A long way off?’

  ‘She seemed to be quite a long way off.’

  ‘A hundred yards, fifty yards?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m not much good at sums. I told you, I only saw her in the distance through the trees as I was running back to the creek.’

  ‘You were running downhill, of course?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And Miss McCraw was walking uphill, in the opposite direction. Is that correct?’

  To his dismay the witness had begun to wriggle and giggle. ‘Oh mercy! She did look so funny.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Bumpher. ‘Get this down, Jim. Why did she look so funny?’ ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘Please tell us, Edith,’ Mademoiselle coaxed. ‘You’re giving Mr Bumpher such valuable help.’

  ‘Her skirt,’ said Edith, stuffing the corner of her handkerchief into her mouth.

  ‘What about her skirt?’

  Edith was giggling again. ‘It’s too rude to say out loud in mixed company.’ Bumpher was leaning towards her as if his keen blue eyes could bore a hole in her brain tissues. ‘You don’t need to mind about me. I’m old enough to be your Dad! . . . that’s the idea.’ Edith was whispering something into Mademoiselle’s attentive little pink ear. ‘She says, Constable, that Miss McCraw was not wearing a skirt – only les pantalons.’

  ‘Drawers,’ the constable instructed young Jim. ‘Now then, Miss Edith. You are positive this woman you saw in the distance walking uphill through the trees was really Miss McCraw?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘Wasn’t it a bit hard to recognize her without her dress?’

  ‘Not at all. None of the other teachers are such a peculiar shape. Irma Leopold once told me “The McCraw is exactly the same shape as a flat iron!”’

  And that was the last and only piece of factual information to be extracted from Edith Horton, either on Wednesday, February the eighteenth, or on any subsequent occasion.

  As soon as the police buggy had turned out of the drive on to the highroad, Mrs Appleyard had sat down resolutely at her desk and locked the study door. It was becoming a habit. As she went about her business, erect, uncommunicative, outwardly unperturbed, she was increasingly aware of a rising murmur of qu
estioning voices from the outside world. Voices of cranks, clergymen, clairvoyants, journalists, friends, relations, parents. Parents of course were the worst. One could hardly toss their letters into the wastepaper basket as one could the offer, with stamped envelope enclosed, to find the missing girls with a patent magnet. A hard core of commonsense told her that it was reasonable enough, even for a parent whose daughter had returned from the picnic safe and well, to write for further information and reassurance. These were the letters that kept her chained and chafing at her desk for hours at a time. An indiscreet word addressed to an overwrought mother might easily at this stage set off a conflagration of lies and rumours that no amount of hosing down with the icy waters of truth could extinguish.

  Mrs Appleyard’s task this morning was the odious and infinitely more dangerous one of writing to inform the parents of Miranda and Irma Leopold and the legal guardian of Marion Quade that all three girls and a governess had mysteriously disappeared from the Hanging Rock. Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately – none of the three letters would reach their destination without considerable delay. Nor would any of the recipients have had access to the published reports of the College Mystery, for reasons to be presently disclosed. Again her thoughts reverted to the morning of the picnic. Again she saw the orderly rows of girls in hats and gloves, the two mistresses in perfect control. Again she heard her own brief words of farewell on the porch, warning of dangerous snakes and insects. Insects! What in the name of Heaven had happened on Saturday afternoon? And why, why, why had it happened to three senior girls so valuable to the prestige and social standing of Appleyard College? Marion Quade, a brilliant scholar, though not wealthy like the other two, could be counted on for academic laurels, almost equally important in their way. Why couldn’t it have been Edith who had disappeared, or that little nobody Blanche, or Sara Waybourne? As usual, the very thought of Sara Waybourne was an irritant. Those great saucer eyes, holding a perpetual unspoken criticism intolerable in a child of thirteen. However, Sara’s fees were always promptly paid by an elderly guardian whose private address was never divulged. Discreet, elegant, ‘Obviously a gentleman,’ as her Arthur would have put it.